Roger-Luc Chayer (Image : Meta AI / Gay Globe)
The Reality of AIDS in 2025
Yes, unfortunately, even in 2025, people still die of AIDS. I’m not talking about countries that lack the resources to treat people living with HIV, but about our wealthy nations, where access to effective HIV treatments is much easier—provided one can respond properly to them.
Daniel’s Story: A Young Man Facing AIDS
Daniel, 29, died on November 10 from AIDS-related complications, alone and abandoned, despite his calls for help, hoping not to close his eyes forever without someone holding his hand.
There are, however, effective antiretroviral treatments, lighter than before, allowing most people living with HIV to live an almost normal life. But Daniel faced personal difficulties that made living with HIV even harder. His irregular medication intake, combined with his homelessness, led to the development of resistance to antiretroviral drugs, forcing him into frequent hospital visits.
Over time, those visits became more and more frequent, and his hospital stays longer, until about three weeks before his death, when doctors decided to keep him in the hospital to provide palliative care rather than sending him back to the streets.
Loneliness, Worse Than the Disease
I had known Daniel for a long time. At first, I tried to help him by setting realistic goals so he could find small jobs, hoping he might secure more stable housing. But I quickly realized that his worst enemy wasn’t the disease—it was addiction, that dependence that made nothing stick to him, not his goals, not even the regular intake of his antiretroviral medication.
A few days ago, he contacted me to say he was hopeful about being allowed to stay in the hospital long enough for them to find a living environment adapted to his HIV. He confided that his greatest fear was dying outside, alone. He just wanted to hear the sound of an ordinary home—the clinking of dishes, the chatter after dessert.
He knew he was very sick, but refused to believe that his days were numbered, even though the medical staff told him they were struggling to stabilize his condition, and that his days could indeed be numbered if he developed an AIDS-related complication.
The AIDS Complications That Lead to Death
According to my medical research, the complications of AIDS that lead to death are often the result of an immune system that slowly collapses. When the HIV virus weakens the body’s natural defenses, the body becomes easy prey for opportunistic infections that would normally be harmless, but here, turn into devastating illnesses.
Pneumonia, lung infections, but also diseases like tuberculosis or aggressive cancers linked to AIDS appear, take hold, and slowly eat away at life. Sometimes, it’s brain infections that gradually destroy one’s faculties, trapping the person inside their own body. All this adds to the deep fatigue, the constant pain, and often the isolation, making the disease a terrible ordeal.
Daniel’s Death
Yesterday, Daniel died at 6:26 p.m., alone in his hospital room. I received a call to inform me, though they could just as well have called a little earlier so I could be there with him. We’ll never know whether he would have wanted me there, or if the overworked medical staff simply forgot to notice the phone number he had left on his bedside table.
Yesterday, Daniel died alone—of AIDS.
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